RED FLAGS FOR SLEEP: HOURLY WAKINGS AND CRYING A LOT
So if your baby is waking every hours, struggling to settle on a regular basis and or need constant holding, it can be a sign of something more is going on.
It could be things like:
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Cow’s milk allergy
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Oral ties and their physical effects
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Airway challenges
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Low iron (anemia)
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Eczema or other skin discomfort
It’s getting commonly accepted to visit the doctor if a baby has reflux, for example. It should feel legit to do so when it comes to excessive crying or hourly waking too.
The hard truth is when your baby’s sleep issue falls outside the scope of medical concern, very few health professionals will have received the appropriate training and tools to address your baby sleep struggle.
- In fact, a study of U.S. medical schools found that students received only 27 minutes of education on pediatric sleep.
- In Canada, only 1% of providers had any sleep-specific training.
- In Australia, most paediatricians answered less than half of pediatric sleep questions correctly.
And these countries are the most concerned about pediatric sleep and prioritize it in their education.
(BBC : The science of healthy baby sleep)
In other words: Most healthcare providers don’t receive formal training in infant sleep biology, or in how to support the discomforts that fall outside of pain or pathology.
But that’s beginning to change.
Why my baby (still) have a bad sleep?
It's a simple question, but with a complicated answer.
Sometimes your baby is gaining weight, thriving in many ways, and yet… the sleep is broken, the nights are long, and no one seems to have any thing to offer about that.
— You get caught between “everything looks fine” and “something still doesn’t feel right.”
And this is where things get tricky. Because once a clear medical issue is ruled out, many doctors shift to offering sleep advice — routines, sleep training, “just let them cry a little.”
Paediatric Sleep is a new field －A promising one
More and more professionals are choosing to deepen their understanding — to better address the in-between, to hold space for nuance, and to support families even when medication has reached its limits.
So if your provider doesn’t bring up sleep biology or offer alternatives beyond sleep training or “just let them cry,” it’s okay — and important — to ask:
What else can I do?
What are the other options? What else do they have to offer? This is part of what we call "Informed choice" or "Informed decision-making" — not just receiving advice, but being truly informed, so you can choose the approach that aligns with your baby, your values, and your instincts.